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Rebalancing in China: Progress and Prospects
Longmei Zhang, Aug 02, 2017This paper develops a framework for China’s rebalancing, reviews past progress, and discusses medium-term prospects. China has advanced well in reducing its excessive external surplus and moving towards consumption and services, while still lagging behind in reducing credit reliance, environmental pollution, and income inequality. Going forward, the economy will continue rebalancing in many dimensions, while credit will remain China’s Achilles heel unless decisive corporate restructuring and SOE reforms are implemented.
Misallocation of Managerial Talent in China’s Housing Boom
Yu Shi, Feb 20, 2019The housing boom in China has raised great concerns about capital and credit misallocation. Recent research by IMF Economist Yu Shi finds that China’s imperfect financial market and regulations in the land market have also led to a misallocation of managerial talent, dampening productivity and growth in the non-real estate sectors. Productive managers in other sectors moved to the real estate sector...
GDP Management to Meet or Beat Growth Targets
Changjiang Lyu, Kemin Wang, Frank Zhang, Xin Zhang, Oct 24, 2018We apply the discontinuity methodology from the accounting literature to a political economy setting of GDP reporting and examine whether Chinese local governments manage regional GDP numbers. We find strong evidence of discontinuities around zero in the distribution of actual minus target GDP growth rates. The frequencies of just meeting or beating GDP growth targets are about five (four) times the frequencies of just missing targets at the prefecture (province) level. The results are stronger for governors with longer tenures and those without political connections to higher-level officials as well as for local governments with more resources under their control.
Unequal Transition: The Widening Wealth Gap amidst China’s Rapid Growth
Yangtian Jiang, Yu Zheng, Lijun Zhu, Nov 08, 2023We examine the drivers of rising wealth inequality in urban China since 1995. We highlight the intertwined nature of growth and equity during China’s transition toward a market-oriented economy.
Income Inequality among Old Chinese
Katja Hanewald, Ruo Jia, Zining Liu, Oct 16, 2019Using data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) from 1991–2015, we decompose the income inequality among old Chinese and compare the income inequality between old households and young households. We develop an OLG model and a new empirical method to test how initial socioeconomic differences transmit to income inequality in the working years and then in old age. We find that the urban-rural gap and educational differences...
